It took years of psychotherapy before I even considered dating. I lost weight, replaced my glasses with contact lenses and felt a lot more confident. But I find it really hard to hold down a relationship.Collection: Dating
On New Year's Day 2008 I had two bailiffs turn up on my doorstep and because I had so little income I had not been paying bills, and I respect the concept of paying bills, I'm very much in favour of it, I just couldn't quite get it together.Collection: Respect
I was struggling, I was hungry, I was a freelance copy editor but had very little work.
When you've grown up always knowing that there's something that seemed to be different about you from most people - and not being able to understand until my mid-forties that what we were talking about here was autism - I've had to learn an awful let about myself and what I can and can't do and what I can or can't cope with.
Never say never, I find I get claustrophobic in a relationship.
For a long time I wasn't allowed to be anything but 'The Governess' when I went on TV, even if I went on a talk show I had to be in costume. I mean guys, I own clothes!
My filthy little secret is that I've always wanted to be famous and I don't get nervous being on TV.
Any group that can be livened up by Mensa must be pretty much dead!
I still get attracted to people but having a relationship isn't fair on the other person.
I didn't set out to be liked - everyone's supposed to be terrified of me. I'm surprised by the amount of viewers who want the Chaser to win!
I had to go to Asda, it's the best supermarket if you're poor as they have a good basic range, Sainsbury's is for rich, posh people.
I would take vouchers, do sums in my head just to get some eggs and bread or a tin of cheap Irish stew. I'd be starving and want two tins but couldn't afford it. The poorer you are the hungrier you feel.
I don't know where I'd be without 'The Chase', it changed my life.
I sort of managed to establish in my life that relationships aren't really a thing I can handle.
I was the world's worst Brownie and Girl Guide and I never did camping.
I am pretty sedentary and I spend most of my time sitting on my bum reading things on the internet! It will do me good to have to exercise a little bit more.
I was a pretty good academic proofreader, I just wasn't good at keeping up with the paperwork.
I got on the quizzing circuit, that's how I heard about the existence of 'The Chase'.
Just by chance, I happened to meet someone who told me there was a high level quizzing circuit.
As an adult I've developed better social skills; I know how to do a conversation, I know how to do a party. I find them wearying, though, and I like that in lockdown no one expects me to go to them.
It's taken me a long time to work out what people are thinking and what they're expecting. I am naturally solitary, and I'm comfortable with that.
Back then, people thought if you could talk you didn't have autism. I was just seen as this slightly odd child. I saw another therapist aged 12, and another in my early 30s.
My father claimed I could read before I went to school. I sucked up knowledge and read the Children's Britannica Encyclopaedia from cover to cover when I was eight.